


Touched

by Dark_of_the_Moon



Category: I Frankenstein (2014)
Genre: F/M, Frankenstein - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-03 20:59:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6626068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_of_the_Moon/pseuds/Dark_of_the_Moon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam has lived without human company, or touch, for centuries. After all that time, what is it like to be in human company? And in a human house?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Night

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Healing Touch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2688845) by [FutureLadyDoc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FutureLadyDoc/pseuds/FutureLadyDoc). 



> Ratings may go up in later chapters.
> 
> ******************

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Movie:  
> No doubt Terra's invitation for Adam to stay was kindly meant. But this may be the first night Adam spends in a human home in... decades? His life? It's probably not as comfortable as Terra intended.

The first night had been a near nightmare.  
  
The bedroom was – well, an ordinary bedroom, rationally Adam knew that. But it felt like a trap: confined, too small to fight in, filled with things he might damage or dirty if he wasn’t careful, and above all, human. It smelled human – the usual low-key mix of detergents and perfumes which humans now used in everything that wasn’t food.  
  
The clothing he wore felt too soft, his skin too tight, his stomach too full – he hadn’t eaten that much in years, more likely decades - and all his instincts screamed at him to get out of here, out onto the streets, and either find something to fight or, failing that, just outrun the emotions boiling inside of him.  
  
But… Terra. If he just ran from her invitation, would she be angry with him? Or hurt? Would she allow him in again?  
  
Did he want to enter this apartment again?  
  
And why had he done it in the first place?  
  
Adam paced the room, slowly at first to avoid throwing something over, then as quickly as the too-close walls would allow. At least his bare feet meant that Terra wouldn’t hear him.  
  
He had come… well, to quiet the questions that had pestered him for three days. That wasn’t entirely new, questions without answers had surrounded him like a pest of flies for all of his life. And as they could not be shooed away, he had had to learn how to live with them without being driven crazy. That usually involved either finding a good fight or work to be done, hunting, fashioning simple weapons, or, if all else failed, running and climbing.  
  
All of that had failed him during the last days.  
  
No matter how exhausted he was, his last thoughts before he drifted into unconsciousness and his first ones on waking circled around Terra. That smile, that look she had given him after Leonore had rescued the two of them. Like… he had nothing to compare it with. It was how humans sometimes, rarely, looked at each other. What did such a smile mean when directed at him? Gratitude? Pity?  
  
And her hand in his. The fragile skin over her knuckles, like warm silk under his fingers. She had not drawn back; he had finally let go of his hand because it was that or pulling her towards him, and then Terra would have freed herself of him and… better to let go.  
  
But since then, the memory and the questions had haunted him and finally driven him her door. To see if she was safe, he told himself.  
  
Well, she was as safe as she could be. Wessex was descended, those of his demon servants who hadn’t were being hunted down by the gargoyles, and his human lackeys were apparently eager to forget all that they couldn’t explain away. There was no reason on earth for him to stay.  
  
But she had said that she’d be safer with him sleeping here.  
  
She had wanted … Adam stopped in his tracks, let his head fell back, sucked in air and slowly exhaled.  
  
She had _wanted_ …  
  
It was no good, the thought of Terra wanting him in her apartment seemed to crumble every time he tried to think it.  
  
She had asked him to stay.  
  
So he stayed. With all his instincts screaming at him to escape into the familiar, open streets, he had stepped into this mine field of human rituals.  
  
She had wanted to examine the wound - needless, he could have told her, but somehow his vocal chords had refused to form the words. The memory of her sewing the wound burned worse than the wound itself ever had: shame at being looked at, forcing himself to keep still while a human being stuck a needle through his flesh, and the utter confusion of her scent and voice; all woven into one deranged mess. At least back then the pain had offered something to focus on.  
  
Now, without the fresh wound, without imminent danger to distract, it was somehow worse: the urge to jump away from her touch was as bad as before, and staying still for no good reason was as confusing. It was being chained down, only there was no chain.  
  
He could have broken a chain.  
  
She had wanted him to eat, so he had eaten.  
  
Embarrassment burned over his neck and face as he wondered what she must have thought about him wolfing down what was probably her entire week’s supply of food. Adam knew that in this time and world, food was incredibly cheap – half the workmen he’d seen in his first century had been less well-fed than the beggars of this time! – and people were shockingly wasteful with it. There had been a time when his behavior would have left someone out of food for a week, or out of money they did not have to spare. Now it could be replaced within and hour, probably from a market stocked with more food than, not so long ago, a village would have eaten in a month.  
  
Still, he had watched humans enough to have a rough idea of what they considered normal behavior, and some basic rules hadn’t changed all that much. He knew guests weren’t supposed to devour every bit of food in the house, but the scents of it, and the taste, had been enough to push everything else into the background.  
  
Next time – if there was a next time! – he’d restrain himself.  
  
Old habits steered Adam to the window. Standing at its side, he carefully lifted the curtain just enough to get a view of the street. No one and nothing moved out there, not on the street, not on the roofs. Behind some of the windows on the other side of the street blueish light – humans watching tv. After a while, movement on the street caught Adam’s eyes: paper was being tossed along by the wind. A whisper of movement in the gutter where rats made use of the night.  
  
After a while, Adam’s attention shifted from the street to the apartment behind him. There was no sound; Terra must have gone to sleep. He could move through the apartment unnoticed. He could… he stomped down on that thought; it was dangerous.  
  
He slipped out of bedroom silently, concentrating on retrieving his weapons and returning as quickly as he could. He left the doors open, though – if someone entered the apartment, he would hear.  
  
The bedroom felt slightly less wrong this time. The bed, however, felt entirely alien when Adam sat down on it. The sheets were pristine, not a wrinkle, spot or tear anywhere. They smelled of nothing but detergent, no trace of any human ever having slept on them. No trace of Terra… Adam sucked in a deep breath. _That_ was another dangerous thought.  
  
Luckily, the effects a long day finally kicked in, aided by a full stomach. Adam sank back and stretched himself out on the alien bed. His naked feet felt cool, so he pulled the covers over his legs and feet.  
  
As soon as he lay still, the questions closed in. The smile. Terra had smiled at him several times this evening. That was probably just something humans did when they had guests. Had he ever been a guest anywhere before? The cathedral of the gargoyles… probably not, considering he had been chained up most of the time. But …  
  
Sleep came.  
  
***********************  
  
The first thought when consciousness resurfaced was that was something was wrong.  
  
He kept his eyes closed, his body motionless and his breathing steady as he extended his senses around him. No street sounds or smells. Not even wind running over his face. No sound of steps or any other signs of someone close. There was nothing around him but warmth and softness.  
  
He opened his eyes and pushed himself up. The movement rubbed smooth sheets over his skin and released a cloud of alien scent. He quickly got up, the feeling that he was escaping a trap tinged with … something else. The room around him was as just as incongruent a mixture of utter wrongness and familiar elements.  
  
Terra’s apartment.  
  
Adam closed his eyes shortly to concentrate on his hearing. No sound of movement, and there wasn’t enough light in this room for dawn to have broken yet. Terra was probably still asleep, curled up in a bed like the one he had just left, no more than a few yards away from this room. She’d be wrapped in a similar cocoon of warmth and her skin’s scent…  
  
Enough of this.  
  
Silently, Adam got up and headed for the bathroom, keeping his thoughts focused on his immediate tasks: locating his own clothing, getting dressed quickly and silently. Leaving the apartment by the door would have meant for the door to stay unlocked behind him, so he opted for the window of his bedroom. It too would remain open, but facing the street as it did and situated on the fourth floor, it would make a poor entry point. He quickly stepped outside onto the tiny ledge, pulled the window close as far as he could, then let himself drop straight along the wall, catching a similar ledge below with his hands just long enough to break his fall down to a comfortable speed. Two more ledges, and Adam dropped noiselessly onto the empty street. He crossed it and looked up – a very careful observer, or one looking for it, would notice the open window.  
  
He stepped into an entryway, just deep enough to be largely hidden while retaining a good view onto the street and the bedroom window across. His body felt different – warmer, stronger. During the few hours of sleep, his body had metabolized most of that food, and now every muscle inside of him was alive with energy. Up in that small room, it would have made him feel as if he was on a pire, but now, out in the open and guarding Terra, it only sharpened his anticipation of the next fight.  
  
Less than two hours later, the sounds of the city rose and the first early risers showed up. The street was by no means crowded, but not empty enough for anyone to make an attempt on that window.  
  
Adam turned and headed for narrower streets and deeper shadows.


	2. The Day

*** Warning: Contains spoilers for the movie ***

 

 

The following day was… strange.

Not bad, but… different.

He felt filled with energy, almost as if he was vibrating with it. Adam had never paid much attention to his patchwork body, which did what needed to be done, was fed when food was available and slept when there was the need and opportunity. Now he wanted to run, fight, just to put the energy flickering through him to use.

Adam found himself crisscrossing the more dangerous allies of the city, scouting for anything of interest: demons, possible hide-outs, anything that might be useful to him. Normally he avoided running - one of the host of shocks that cities held for Adam had been that a hooded, scar-disfigured man would actually draw less attention than one running at full speed – but now he found it was difficult to keep his body down to his normal pace, and fell into a slow run whenever no-one was in sight.

He covered a lot of ground. He came across a few abandoned buildings, one of which didn’t seem to be taken by human outcasts. His last bolt hole had been utterly destroyed, and at the time, if it hadn’t been for the danger to Tara’s life, Naberius and a few hundred demons about to attack, Adam would have been angry about that. He never stayed long in the same place, but that one had been a good haunt, with running water and even a bed.

No demons turned up to offer targets to the energy coursing through him, and apart from one attempt at knife-point robbery, over in less than a minute with the assailant whimpering on the ground and the victim running for the safety of the next street, things were uneventful. As a rule, Adam kept himself out of human violence – drawing attention never ended well, and if humans wanted to kill one another, that was up to them – but he found violence against the weak hard to ignore.

When dusk fell, he headed towards the cathedral of the gargoyles. As he drew close, a shape detached itself from the looming building and swerved down, furling its wings around itself and unfurling them to reveal Leonore, dignified as ever.

“Adam.” Despite the short greeting, her expression was warm, near smiling.

Adam took a breath and dropped the shoulders he had tensed at her approach. “Leonore. No guards?”

Now her expression broadened into a miraculous smile. “For once, there is no need. What demons there are left are scattered, leader-less. They may pose a threat to humans, but not to you or I.” She lifted her chin and, with a rare look of pride, allowed her true form to partly emerge through her surface camouflage. Then, just as quickly, she allowed her human form to settle again. “The cathedral is my home, not my prison. Though, in the past years, it would have been easy to forget that.”

Adam knew no answer to that, and was a bit shaken by her smile and friendly demeanor towards him. So, he settled for silence.

It turned out that Leonore had little new information; like Adam, she did not expect this battle to have been the last. Naberius’ plan had failed for the moment, but he was too powerful and ancient to give up. For the moment, there was not much to be done.

That left Adam with the choice of where to spend the night. He ran through empty streets back to the deserted building he had spent the last few nights in – _not the last one_ , his thoughts whispered. It was still empty, it’s huge, empty windows probably leaving it too cold and drafty for humans.

Close by, Adam had noticed a an old couch left outside of a rundown tenement. When he returned, a small flock of teenagers was already busy tearing it apart, but after noticing his approach and a moment of insecurity, one of them ran off and the rest followed. They had slit one cushion open, but the rest were intact. All Adam had to do was pick them up and drag them into what was, at the moment, “his” room – located on one of the upper floors, with enough exit paths and freed of trash and dust a few nights ago. With the padding laid down in a corner that was close to the door and far enough from the window to stay dry even in strong rain, Adam had all that he needed for sleeping place.

Only that he wasn’t remotely tired, or hungry enough to search for food - slight signs of hunger had set in about the afternoon, but he wouldn’t really need food for at least another day. Restless, he took back to the streets, straying through alleys and looking for… something. Somewhere.

Somewhere to go that wasn’t Terra’s apartment.

Some reason not to go to there.

Rain set in and cleared the streets and alleys of most humans. Adam didn’t mind cold, but he strongly disliked wearing wet clothing which stuck to his skin, hindering his movements and itching when it dried.

While his mind was still trying to evade itself, his feet led him back to Terra’s door.

 

 

 


	3. Returning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In two centuries, Adam has had little experience of being in human homes, and none at all of being a guest. He doesn't know how to behave in Terra's home, but he doesn't know how to stay away, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mixed canon: I Frankenstein + The modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
> 
> More than a week for a chapter? I swear, trying to keep this story on track for Terra-Adam interaction is like trying to herd cats. I’m constantly seeing Adam as his life history: most of the time he spent in a human society, even as an outcast, was in the late 18th and early 19th century. And he was never really taught to understand that society; he had to pick it up by himself. Then it’s, apparently, 2 centuries nearly or totally isolated, and now he’s in a modern city. 
> 
> Turns out it’s near impossible for me not to write about what our “normal” world look like to Adam. So I’m simply going with the flow, otherwise I find myself deleting 90% of what I write.
> 
> If I use slightly off terminology to describe details of a modern world – that’s on purpose. Those are details we learn when communicating with others, so I’d expect Adam to slip sometimes.
> 
> *** edited to iron out some mistakes**

Arriving at Terra’s apartment, Adam took up his spot in the street, opposite the window he had left through not 20 hours ago.

 

There was no light in that room, but the windows beside it were lit, and Adam could see movement. Other windows in the building were lit, too. If he entered now, he could encounter other humans living in that building.

 

Adam’s first instinct was to simply wait until all lights but Terra’s went out, but he knew this could be hours, and by then Terra herself would probably be asleep. Adam had learned that true night had been done away with in cities together with real darkness: there were always street lights, even shops closed for the night would keep their huge, colored lights lit, and whatever the time of day or night, in every street or alley would always be at least one window lit. Usually with the blueish flickering that Adam recognized as signs of tv screens.

 

Those screens captured humans, he knew that. Even outside of their buildings, a screen in a shop window could make humans stand, watch and forget their surroundings, which was one of the reasons Adam tried to avoid looking at them. He had, rarely, entered human homes with their inhabitants present and awake, and he had been surprised to find that it was almost easier than entering at night. Humans were incredibly careless during day-time, and would even leave back doors open while they sat and watched the screens, allowing Adam to slip in, help himself to food, clothing, a blanket or tools, and leave, all unnoticed by humans not six yards away from him. It had shocked him, especially when the humans were women, and in one case he had purposely dropped a glass and allowed a young woman to catch a glimpse of him as he was hurrying away. He’d heard screams behind him – good. Hopefully, she'd locked her doors from then on.

 

He checked the windows again. Six windows on every level of the building, three to each apartment. In each of those triplets at least one window was filled with the tell-tale flickering: all the inhabitants had their attention bound and were unlikely to leave their apartments.

 

He hurried over the street, pressed the button connected to Terra’s apartment, and kept his hand on the door, ready for the purring of the open lock.

 

A click and rustling, and then Terra’s voice. “Who is it?”

 

 _Good, she was careful._ “Adam.”

 

The door purred at him, and he pushed it open, pulled the hood over his head and ran upstairs, two steps at a time and as silently as he could.

 

When he arrived on the fourth floor, Tara was already standing at the open door. He was about to warn her about that – someone else could have been in the building, too – when she smiled at him and spoke.

 

Even after yesterday, that smile came as a shock. Like sunlight on those overcast days in the wilderness, when clouds hung low in the sky and made everything look dirty and grey – except where an opening in the clouds turned one spot into an island of color. That’s what Terra’s smile felt like: like standing in such a spot and being filled with sunlight.

 

It left him dazed, and barely aware that she had said something and was now looking at him expectantly. _Damn_. What did humans say?

 

“… Good evening.”

 

Her smile deepened, her eyes lit up, and Adam felt an urge to turn and run, or take a step and reach out and … _don’t_.

 

“Good evening! Come on in. Dinner is nearly ready.”

 

With no idea what else to do, Adam simply followed her. Once inside, he simply followed the pattern of his last visit and allowed himself to be lead into the dining room. On the table were two plates, glasses, knives and forks – she had been expecting him. Adam felt that strange sensation in his chest again. Not like his reaction to human revulsion, not even like the twinge he felt when watching human couples touching or smiling at each other. Different from all of that. Was this his soul again?

 

The food Terra put onto the table interrupted his thoughts and offered a welcome distraction. Last evening he had barely paid attention to the tastes – in general, the taste of food only served to warn him of the very few plants that would seriously disagree with his body – but this time, he was trying to get it right.

 

It turned out that it wasn’t difficult to slow himself down; due to the meal of the last evening, the background hunger which was part of him as much as his scars and the fighting sticks was nearly gone. Adam meant to stop eating after the second plate, but there was still a lot of food on the table, and Terra kept offering, so it seemed easiest to accept. Besides, who knew – he would not be welcome here forever, and finding food could take up a lot of time.

 

He watched Terra and tried to imitate the way she ate: some food she would touch, like bread and the apple wedges in a small bowl, but mostly she was eating with fork and knife. There didn't see to be a fixed logic to it, but then there usually wasn’t to human rituals.

 

“I’m glad you’re here. It keeps me… “ Terra broke eye contact for a moment and took a deep breath. She looked at him. “It keeps me grounded, I suppose.”

 

Adam had frozen when she started to speak, then swallowed and lowered his fork. He kept his eyes on her, but couldn’t for the life of him come up with something to say.

 

Maybe Terra sensed it; in any case, she went on. “It’s all so… two weeks ago I was a scientist doing groundbreaking research for some corporation, and,” her chin lifted a bit, and her smile held a hint of challenge, “I was pretty damn good at it. And then… “ her smile faded, and she spread her hands. “Well, my boss is – _was_ a demon prince. Most of the security were demons – I had been walking past some of them for weeks and months, and they are demons! The aim of my research wasn’t to prolong human life but to resurrect an army of corpses to wipe out mankind. The demon I worked for – for goodness sake, I worked for a _demon_! - nearly killed the both of us, only the queen of gargoyles saved us.” Terra shook her head with something between a sigh and a short laugh. ” _That_ is insane. Actually, it is insane enough for half a dozen delusions. There are so many moments when it all hits me and I think, it must have been a dream. I know it wasn’t, but it’d make so much more sense.”

 

Terra’s eyes, which had looking at something mostly in her mind, now focused on Adam, and the hint of a smile returned. “And then… then you are here, and I know it was real, and all those things exist.”

 

Adam looked down at his plate as if the cooling meat and potatoes held an answer. “Do you want it to be just a dream?”

 

“Yes!” Loud and quick. Adam closed his eyes and was grateful that his expression was partly hidden. Then she spoke on, softer, but determined. “No. _No_. I… I’d love to be back in a world that’s rational and sane and where the only thing beneath our feet is geology, not an army of demons. I think part of me would like to pretend that so I can just find another job and get on with my life.” Adam realized that his hand had clenched around the fork and forced himself to carefully put it down. Something changed again in Terra’s voice, and made him look up.

 

“But that is not the real me." She took a deep breath, and her neck straightened. "I don’t want to hide from reality. And I might want to live in a world without demons and I’m not sure about gargoyles, but…” Now she hesitated, her eyes flickering away from his and her mouth working silently. She looked… uncertain. Adam was suddenly aware of his heart thumping in his breast. Could this be as confusing for her as for him? Now she looked up at him, her dark eyes focused at him, and went on with a deep breath. “… I don’t want to be in world without you.”

 

Heat bloomed inside of Adam, and all that kept him from jumping up and escaping from the apartment were her eyes, mesmerizing him, transfixing him where he sat. As he looked at her, a blush rose over her cheeks, making her look so feminine and fragile that Adam couldn’t breathe, only stare at her. She must have noticed something, because she got up and, not knowing at all what he was doing, so did Adam, ready to round the table to her and …

 

She shook her head and picked up her plate . “Uhm, no, I… I’ll just be in the kitchen. Please, just finish, if you like… Take as much as you want; I’ll be back in a moment.” In a moment, she had taken some empty bowls and was gone.

 

The food had lost it’s appeal, but it was food, so Adam wolfed it down, then got up and hesitated. Terra was still in the kitchen, he could hear water running. Should he follow her? If he did, what would he do?

 

He was probably making too much of this. She had only said that she didn’t want to be in a world without … goose bumps ran over Adam’s spine at the memory, followed by a shudder and the urge to escape these confining walls and run. He paced into the next room – a room dominated by a couch, so soft, he remembered from the last evening, that it was more suitable for sleeping than for sitting on, the dark tv screen, and shelves of books.

 

Books… if questions were bothersome flies, then memories were wasps. But right now he needed something to focus on, so he stepped towards the nearest shelf and scanned the backs of the books for letters and words he recognized.

 

Books had always been a reminder that he was different. In the first months and years of his life, before he knew that he himself was not a human, he had watched human beings incessantly, trying to understand them, trying to understand himself.

 

A lot of it had been fairly clear – food, eating, children, staying in a group. The animals he watched in forests or in fields followed much the same patterns, and at times the differences between animals and humans had seemed vague. Until Adam had realized that while animals were mostly simple, humans were complicated – they seemed to _want_ to be complicated. There were… small, unnoticeable details about how they ate, slept, walked,… anything, really, and sometimes the little details turned out to be far more important than the obvious ones.

 

But books… books had been… strange. Humans sometimes spoke aloud out of them, and others listened, like … it was a bit as if the book was talking, as if it was whispering to the one holding the book, and that human repeated it aloud for the others. But sometimes a human would just sit there with a book, and stare at it for a long time, then move one of the white leaves, then sit there staring. Sometimes they laughed for no reason, or frowned, or even cried. Adam had at that point been sure that the books were talking to them, and he had, at the first opportunity, slipped into a house, taken a book, and tried to listen to it.

 

It had been terribly frustrating. Even centuries later, the memory of his foolish, futile attempts made Adam cringe with shame.

 

There had been patterns on the leaves, not entirely unlike the patterns on tree bark or leaves. Adam had imitated what he had seen as well as he could, tried to sit like they did, hold the book right, move the leaves… nothing had worked. The book remained silent, and Adam had finally thrown it into a corner, furious with it for not talking to him, and with himself for not understanding.

 

Later on he had realized that small humans could not hear the books’ whispers, either. They needed grown-up humans for that. And then, in the time he still thought of as “the time by the cottage”, he had realized that little humans, children, had to learn how to hear books, and learn it very slowly. And then he had listened in on lessons, drawn letters on the ground and tried to find them in the patterns on the book leaves, which were called pages.

 

The end of it all had been that as hard as he tried, he could at best make out and recognize some words, but most remained barred to him. And after the death of Elisabeth Frankenstein he’d been eager to leave behind humanity and everything that went with it.

 

Adam realized that he’d been sightlessly staring – glaring, really - at the books for a while when he heard movement from the kitchen. Terra walked towards him. Would she ask him about books, and if he could read? He didn’t want to lie to her; neither could he imagine telling her the truth without cringing.

 

Terra stopped within arms reach of him, and Adam could smell her scent. “You know, I haven’t read most of these for months, or even years. I think I meant to, but there was always work and I barely kept up with what was going on outside of the lab.”

 

She picked a book off a shelf, small, with the outside showing clear signs of use, and looked at it with a wistful smile. “I meant to re-read this for weeks, or months, I don't know.” She turned to Adam, her eyes and face shining. “Adam, I think I would like to read this out loud, if it’s okay for you? ”

 

Adam felt the frown on his face deepen. If she read, would she expect him to read, too? But he had to say something. “It’s okay.” It sounded gruff, even to himself, but Terra didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, her smile deepened, and while Adam was still slightly stunned, quickly reached for his right hand, pressed it and, apparently not noticing the flinch he didn’t quite manage to suppress, turned to sit at one end of the couch and fiddle with a lamp right beside her.

 

Adam watched her for a moment, then remembered that he should sit down, too. He still didn’t like sitting on the too-soft couch and wasn’t sure whether it’d be right to move a chair from dining room, so he simply sat beside it on the floor, resting his left arm on the couch, his right on his knee. He carefully watched Tessa, but she only smiled at him, then made herself comfortable on the couch, maybe 5 feet away from him, opened the book and started reading.

 

As the heat stoked by her smile quietened in his stomach, Adam realized that for once, he didn’t feel unsure about what to do. He knew this, he had seen it: one reads, the others watch and listen. No-one asks questions, and there is no need to find the right thing to say.

 

Even the constant conflict of hunger and apprehension that was the price for being in Terra’s presence was softened. Her eyes were on the book, so he could watch her safely, without being exposed to her eyes.

 

Adam took a deep breath and rested some of his weight against the couch, his eyes on Terra. She had moved a light to be close to the book, her eyes shaded by her hair as she read, but her face illuminated by reflected light from the white leaves – pages – of the book. For the first time since he knew her, he could give in to that strange greed for the sight of her. He couldn’t be in her presence without his eyes wanting to devour her, everything of her: eyes, hair, fingers, shape, colours, lines, textures … it was like a different, dangerous kind of hunger.

 

And at the same time, being caught looking at her, and feeling her eyes on him, felt like a whiplash; like every scar on his face and body was burning.

 

Now, for once! - he could safely look at her, and knowing that this would end and maybe never come again, he let his eyes gorge themselves. Terra’s hair caught the light of the lamp and shone like the moon. Her hands cradled the book, and her lips moved around the words of the book. Now and then the tip of her tongue darted out and over her lips, or she would move a little, her body swaying slowly in search of a different position, then settling down again.

 

Her voice was soothing and pleasant, the words forming sentences that hung in Adams mind for seconds, then dissolved in the sentences which followed. He couldn’t keep track of the meaning; sometimes two or even three sentences would fit together, but then temptation won over and Adam was again distracted by the line of her wrist or her nose or the movements of her throat as she spoke.

 

Adam had no idea how long they sat like that, but finally her voice fell silent, and after a few moments, she closed the book, then turned to him. Somehow, having filled himself with her, it was much easier to bear her eyes on himself without flinching.

 

“I never had the opportunity to read this out aloud. It’s fun. Thank you for listening.”

 

 _He should say something …_ “Thank you. For reading.”

 

There was here smile again, beautiful and devastating like a wildfire. “It’s late, and I need to sleep soon. Maybe we can continue tomorrow?”

 

 _I can look at her again tomorrow._ Adam took care to keep his face impassive. “We can.”

 

He washed and entered the bedroom in an alien state of mind. Only when he had taken up his post by the window did he recognize it: his mind was as unusually quiet as the street below him, the current of questions replaced by a strange calm he had rarely felt. Even the too-enclosed room around him didn’t trigger any doubts or thoughts. Adam felt... sated. Like a hunger beyond food had been, for the moment, satisfied.

 

For a while, he kept his eyes on the still street, then simply lay down on the bed. After a few moments, his eyes closed and, listening to the echoes of Terra’s voice, Adam fell asleep.


End file.
